Aftermath
by x-werecat
Summary: After the finale: Elena wakes up a vampire, and shit hits the fan. There's no time to cope. There's no time to get used to her new existence. While she has a long future ahead of her, her time may finally be running out. Memories come back, feelings unravel, and we have a pretty damn pissed off original on our hands. Let's just see what happens.
1. Chapter 1

_AN: Hey! This is one of my first attempts at writing fanfiction, I'm planning on it being quite a long story. Feel free to offer any criticism and advice you may have, and of course, feel free to follow along! Thanks!_

* * *

A sharp intake of breath, and it tasted like it never had before. It was how it all began.

I felt this breath travel through my body, just to dissipate in the chambers of my chest. It was wrong - I took another breath and almost choked on what it brought to me. The taste of iron and copper pennies filled my tongue, touching the roof of my mouth and every part of my being. It was delicious, and something made me want more - but it was wrong, a gut feeling told me, although I didn't exactly know why.

My eyes, finally opened and focus, fluttered about the room. White walls, bright lights that stung as I looked at them, and I was on a stretcher.

My eyes fell closed as fast as they had opened as the feeling of water flowing in sent me reeling - floating there, simple, free, but with no hope for anything good to come of it. I felt my arms release their tension, my body just relaxing to the fact that this was it, this was the end, and there was no saving me now. After everything, after dodging death like a bullet time and time again, it had finally caught up with me. But there was Stefan, and there was Matt ... _Matt ..._

"Matt?" I uttered, the sound of my voice sounding completely foreign to me. It was so loud, though the syllable was released in a whisper. I didn't know who I was speaking to until a voice, very quiet, as if cautious, spoke back to me.

"He's safe, don't worry." Looking over, my eyes met with Stefan's. His face was set, although his cheeks were wet and his eyes red and swollen. Why wasn't he happy? I was fine, wasn't I?

"What happened?"

He was quiet. There were very few occasions where Stefan couldn't bear to look me in the eyes, and on those occasions, something life changing had occurred. Usually the only subject where he would beat around the bush was death, the only subject where he couldn't look me in the eye and tell me how it was.

But if Matt was fine ... "Jeremy? Bonnie?" Stefan shook his bowed head. "Damon?" Another shake.

My eyes felt wild, catching every movement that was made out in the hall. My ears tingled with noises that were so small, so unimportant, but started to eat at my brain. My body didn't feel like mine - I felt as if I was being controlled by something, something heavy and unmoving. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

When Stefan failed to shake his head again, and simply remained still, I knew. "I couldn't save you in time," he said. I froze, knowing that I practically decided to die when I had told him to take Matt over myself, but this wasn't supposed to happen. What was dead, should stay dead, right? But of course, that one law of nature had kind of been thrown all over the place the last few years. I felt my hands start to shake as I brought them to my face. Everything seemed to hang in the air for a moment as a dark cloud of realization fell over me. Then it all crashed down, breaking into a million pieces that will never be one again.

"Oh god, I'm gonna' be sick," I whispered, my fingers bouncing off my forehead, my knees trembling so roughly that the stretcher was shaking with me. My brain slowly fell to mush as I realized that time no longer mattered - unless another factor, whether it be myself, another vampire, an original - I would live forever, except, there was no life anymore. There was no growing up, there was no more hope of doing the things that people do when they grow up: get married, have kids, have a career - it all escaped through my fingertips, and it had hit me at that exact moment.

Stefan was pulling my hair back as the last bit of food in my stomach landed in the bin he had brought to me.

He was saying words, nice sugar-coated phrases like _it'll be okay_, and _it'll get harder but you have me_, and maybe a _you'll get through this_, here and there as he patted my back. "No one is going to force you to do anything." This phrase of his had stuck out to me, and when the last of my last meal as a human left me, I turned to him, wiping the corner of my mouth shamelessly.

"What do you mean?"

"You already had this choice decided for you, so whether or not you go through the transformation is up to you. Of course everyone is here for you, Elena. But we won't hold you back if you decide not to go through with it." I stared at him, his words completely petrifying me. I hadn't thought about it, which was understandable, considering that it was still within the first half hour of my new existence. Everything I had been fighting for, all the people who I had been trying to protect - save a few, they were all still here. For once, it wasn't something else that had changed, it was me - it was me who was different, it was me who was _gone_. While letting myself die when I could go on felt silly, part of it had it's glamour.

I never wanted this.

In fact, it was the last thing I wanted.

Not knowing what else to say, I simply nodded my head and laid back down. I was not yet ready to face the world that waited for me outside those walls.


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: Thank you all so much for the reviews, the favorites, and the alerts! It was really surprising, and I'm extremely flattered! I hope you like this chapter, and just know the action will be coming along shortly. Don't worry your pretty heads! :P _

* * *

_The boy who stood across the road stared, causing me to stop moving and stare back. He seemed to have been lost, his eyes widened, and after a moment relaxed again, as if to appear cool. Approaching him wasn't an option, since he had already spotted me and seemed to have made a decision. "Katherine?" He whispered, sounding like wounded puppy, and well, it just wasn't what I expected._

_"No, I'm Elena."_

_The boy who stood across the road grinned. The grin told me two things - one, there was something exciting about this boy and two, there was something I couldn't trust about him._

As I slowly fluttered back into consciousness, the soft feeling on my body, as apposed to the stiff stretcher from the hospital made me open my eyes in confusion. The walls were still white, but this time spotted with memories: photos, banners, posters, and a calendar that read a month behind the actual date. The lights were off, but a dim sunrise entered through the closed shade. Looking at my alarm clock as if it were just another day, as if I would have to be going to school in a few hours like any normal teenager, I was surprised when it read five in the morning.

I was wide awake, and for once, perhaps the only one awake.

As I lifted my hands from underneath my blankets, something caught my eye - my mother's ring, a ring I loved but had not dared to remove from her belongings, was on my finger. A wave of confusion came over me before I realized what this meant, and my eyes traveled to the window, where the sunlight wasn't bothering me as it should have been. Carefully I removed myself from the bed, my feet pressing onto the floor before I went to the window and opened the blinds.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when a groan sounded from across the room.

"Elena, why ..." I looked over, and a sleepy Damon rubbed his eyes before opening them lazily.

"Damon! How long have you-"

"That doesn't matter," he groaned, lifting himself on the arm chair to a normal seating position. "How are you feeling?"

I paused, thinking about the question before answering. It was strange, looking down at my body and realizing that it was still there. I was living in the afterlife, and while so many things were different, so many things remained untouched. "I feel fine," I said with light surprise. Perhaps it took time to fully feel the affects, but right then, I felt like myself. I didn't feel the urge to tear through human flesh, my head wasn't exploding in pain - while my senses were heightened, I somehow found a way to feel at ease. Perhaps this was acceptance moving it's way through, but either way, I still had quite the burden to carry that I haven't quite realized yet.

Damon didn't seem satisfied. "Really?" he said, his eyes narrowing in my direction. I shrugged, giving him a what do you want from me kind of look before turning back to my window. "You know this isn't something you can ignore."

I turned back to him, giving him a bizarre look before relaxing with a simple roll of my eyes. "Wow, Damon is going against his own motto. Are you serious? I told you I feel fine, as in I don't feel dead. I just woke up, it's five in the morning, I just need time."

"Well, you don't have time."

Glaring at him with pursed lips I turned away from him once again. He was right, which was always hard to admit when it came to Damon.

"I need some air."

With that I left the room, leaving Damon on the chair, most likely to fall asleep again. "Don't leave the front yard," he grumbled as I walked past. I said nothing.

* * *

I wanted to ask her why she did it, why she sacrificed herself for Matt. But I knew the answer, and I could foresee the parade of anger that would follow my question if I dared to ask. Of course she would want to save Matt, out of what seemed to be all of Mystic Falls, he was the only normal one. Maybe a year ago I wouldn't be able to understand why she made the decision that she did, but now it was clear, it was easy, and the question didn't even need asking.

But my gut warmed with anger at the thought of how this all could have been avoided if I were there, along with Stefan. Stefan could have saved Matt and I could have saved Elena. Elena would still be human, Elena would still be happy - er, as happy as she could be - and she wouldn't have a huge decision on her head. A decision that was driving me absolutely nuts.

Stefan told me that we couldn't try to persuade her, though the words on my tongue burned with the desire of it. The thought of her disappearing forever, finally being dead, with no hope of her return - I was sure it would drive me to my own demise. With her being a vampire now, she had all the time in the world. With the advantage of the originals thinking she was dead, perhaps they would leave them all alone forever. She could finally be at peace, she could finally be happy.

It was what I wanted, but maybe, and this was the terrible part, it wasn't what she wanted.


End file.
